Review: Tamil film Onayum Aatukuttiyum is brilliant

Director Mysskin’s Onnayum Aatukutiyum (OA)starring himself and Sri of Vazhakku Enn 18/9 fame in the lead role, is an emotional suspense thriller about a dangerous mercenary desperately trying to redeem himself in a society that is unforgiving and relentless in its attempts to foil his good intentions and destroy his life.

The opening scene in OA sets the tone for the entire film. A dark night, deserted road, a lone man running and then collapsing and his blood slowly staining the road...

Pedestrians and motorists pass by without making any attempt to help him. One stops to take a picture of the man to post on Facebook.

With just this one scene, Mysskin effectively describes the callous attitude of society today. There is one scene where a police officer quietly takes away the watch of the bleeding, unconscious man. There are many scenes like this throughout the film.

Just when we begin to lose all faith in humanity, enters our hero Chandru (Sri), a fourth year medical college student returning home from a group study session with his friends. He stops his bike, checks the man’s vitals and rushes him to the nearby hospital.

The doctor, however, refuses to treat him claiming that the man had gun shot wounds and the matter had to be reported to the police.

Chandru takes the man to the police station. Disgusted with the insensitive attitude of the police, he leaves the police station and with nowhere to go, takes the dying man to his home.

Here, with the help of his college professor, he performs a surgery that saves the man’s life. The next morning, however, to his great surprise, the man vanishes.

Even as Chandru is wondering about his strange midnight adventure, he is arrested by a couple of CB-CID officials. His brother and sister-in-law too are placed under arrest. Chandru comes to know that he has actually helped a dangerous criminal by the name of Wolf (Mysskin). The man is believed to have killed over 14 people.

Despite knowing that Chandru is innocent, the police blackmail him into helping them catch Wolf. The rest of the story is about how innocent Chandru is trapped in the dangerous game played by the wolf.

There are no songs, or subplots or a separate comedy track to mar the flow of narration.

There is just the simple and pure background score of the maestro, Ilayaraja. You can close your eyes and the music will tell you the tale. The action and emotion in every scene is heightened by the various instruments playing in the background.

Another highlight of the film is the cinematography by Balaji Ranga. All the scenes are shot at night with very little lighting, mostly under street lights, creating the right environment for the film.

The negatives in the film would be some of the over-exaggerated scenes, the sword fight in the climax and the ease with which people shoot each other.

Mysskin, who is the master of suspense thrillers, has scripted a brilliant tale filled with human emotions and dark humour, cleverly maintaining the suspense element in the film until the very end.